


people people people

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Bisexual Character, Bisexuality, Female Character of Color, Gender Identity, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Multi, Pansexual Character, Sexual Identity, Stream of Consciousness, Trans Female Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the words that fall under an umbrella larger than the universe, fall on Cosette's lips and she considers how she feels about people and how she feels about using words for herself</p>
            </blockquote>





	people people people

**Author's Note:**

> haha thats a lot of tags whoah  
> my spanish is absolutely horrible and i wouldnt be surprise if i got one sentence wrong

Cosette's first kiss happens in spring, and she remembers how itchy her tank top was, and how she stared at the dragonfly hovering behind the girl's head instead of closing her eyes because she thought she would slip away from the moment if she did, and she wanted it to be special, she wanted to cherish the memory, but instead she ended up biting the girl's tongue on accident and got her braces caught in the girl's hair when she first leaned in

it was embarrassing and sloppy and she might have drooled, the weather was terribly and frighteningly hot and she had just got out of P.E. which meant she smelled like gym shorts and shoes and maybe a little bit of flowery deodorant behind the sweat, but she remembers how the girl pulled away and smiled at her and titled her head down to stare at her shoes (those Sketchers light-up shoes that blew elementary school kid's minds back in the day) and then Cosette found herself blurting out, “Thank you,” and the girl laughed so wonderfully she melted like chocolate in the sun, like ice cream at the beach, like a girl who had just kissed a girl for the first time and heard her laugh and fell a little bit in prepubescent love

in seventh grade she kisses the TA in art class and he smiles at her, dazed, delighted, whenever he walks by her for the rest of the month but he never calls her, except for that one chain mail text he sent her that scared her so much she showed it to her dad and Valjean almost called the cops on the poor kid. that was her first phone – a flip phone with too many stickers on it - and her second kiss, and her first run-in with a boy

she asks her dad a year later what it means if you kiss boys and girls, and he bought her ice cream and smiled at her in the Adult Way that meant he was going to give some kind of Talk, but Valjean never knew how to give a Talk, let alone a Serious Talk, to his little girl

so he took her to Enjolras's house and they sat her down for a very long time on the long brown leather sofa which meant Enjolras was going to give her a Serious Talk and they would wave their arms and blink faster, and she fidgeted so much their lips started to quiver into a hesitant yet thoroughly displeased frown and Cosette liked to get that reaction out of her cousin because she was a “rabble rouser just like them” as her dad would say, laughing

his laugh was deep and hearty and she could feel it in his chest as he held her in his lap and Enjolras's laugh was abrupt, amazing, and made her want to laugh too, and their voice was impassioned, determined, and otherworldly to her. Cosette didn't understand a word they told her except for the word pansexual. she asked about pans, Enjolras's lips quivered, and then she asked for some eggs. she did retain something of the long, complex conversation, that saying “boys and girls” left out the other genders, and she didn't like leaving people out because that meant she was a bully, and Cosette tried all her best to be anything but a bully, so she stopped saying “boys and girls” and instead just said “people” because it was a simple change and meant she wasn't leaving anyone out, like in soccer when the other kids never let one kid kick the ball

in later years she goes back to Enjolras on her own and asks them about sexuality, and this time they sit at the kitchen counter and Enjolras stares at her in a familial way with their hands in their lap and they have a long talk, deep into the winter night, about what it's like being a transgender girl and a non-binary person in a word of “boy and girl” for Enjolras and “boy or girl” for Cosette, and neither of them can fit quite exactly into any box, gender-wise, sexuality-wise, because they have to make their own wisdom in a world of strict identities. it snows outside, a storm that lasts for a week

she kisses Éponine in autumn when Cosette's lips are gold with the sweetness of people, ripe with soft pecks and spontaneous mouths that mashed together without knowing what to do with teeth or tongue or hands, ve tasted like gum and apple juice from the abandoned carton on the table next to ver, and Cosette landed back on Earth gasping as the flood that poured through the tiny apartment ve shared with three stoners, a tiny apartment with cream-colored walls and dirty carpet and a river roared through the rooms that smelled like cats and out through the small window in the bright yellow bathroom with a broken toilet – receded, plainly, simply, and Éponine did not move vis hand up Cosette's thigh or kiss down her collarbone, because Cosette learned about asexuality that fall, when her head was still wrapped up in bisexuality and pansexuality, and Éponine was something of a wonder, a sex repulsed asexual who brought her to Wonderland with a kiss and loved many people in a stitched-up heart that bested on against the words “broken” and “baggage” with the very real word asexual, and the very real name that Cosette sighed against vis cheek

Cosette knows the texture of stubble rubbing against her face as she bites their bottom lip – she's improved ever since she first accidentally bit down on the first girl's lip, she's learned the kind of response it can incite and how she can get past the barrier of awkward teeth to pleasure – and she knows about gripping long, soft hair as she dips her partner down to capture their mouth in her own, she dabbles in romance and finds out about the unexplored world of language forbidden in English class, she knows that the partner she had in her senior year of high school had the most lovely personalized pronouns based on the language Valjean had taught her alongside the school curriculum English, the language she was born to speak. ell@ taught her not to let go of spanish, and she knows words so valuable that the world is scared to put them in a dictionary, Cosette is unafraid to ask “what pronouns do you use?” and "¿qúe éstan sus pronombres?"

she knows that by her mid thirties she is content with the passing of the seasons and the people who have shared their lives and their words with her, she does not know if bi or pan would fit her more, but she fits into dresses and high heels, if she's feeling brave enough, and she cannot fit the strong and intense emotion of Enjolras when it comes to this all, but she can fit her hand into her partners', and she can be a fluid girl carried by the current of humanity to the banks of happiness, brilliant, decisive that she is uncertain, ever experiencing fresh  
understanding of the existence of people


End file.
